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20 y/o, female, third year medical student, presenting with a serious case of invisibility. Onset was sudden, 3 years ago upon commencement of the degree. Slight decrease in symptom severity over the past year as knowledge has increased however the true extent of the invisibility depends on which ward she is in. Symptoms are exacerbated by consultants and senior regs but alleviated by nice helpful doctors and nurses.

Most recent case of the ailment

Site: Intensive Care Unit

Associated symptoms: No motivation, bored, sleepy, feeling stupid, sore feet from no chairs available for the med student and overwhelming urge to go home.

Timing: 4 hours (was projected to be 8hrs but left early from intolerable symptoms)

Severity: 8/10

Over my past few placements I have come to the realisation that I have a serious case of ‘invisible medical student-itis.’ This is a widespread disease affecting MBBS students everywhere regardless of their age or intellectual aptitude. The diagnosis is upon observation where a lone med student is avoided by a minimum radius of 2 meters by all health professionals. The cure is not entirely known – proactivity helps in some cases, however in others it’s largely unresponsive. There is no vaccination and like any viral illness one must wait until the illness passes – this can take 4 to 7 years depending on what form of the disease/degree is acquired.

It’s that time of year again – uni holidays – which means for us pre-clinical medical students its placement time. Getting to put all the knowledge we have learnt into practice. Seeing real patients, doing real procedures (cannulas woah!), answering questions and being all medical-like. Sounds amazing right? Well that depends. You must be careful as to avoid the contagious bug that causes “invisible medical student-itis”- for once you have it, placement will be as exciting as watching a cactus grow. And unfortunately for me, I got infected in my placement at ICU. G-R-E-A-T.

Let me set the scene – enthusiastic Nimmy bounced into ICU at 7:45am on a Saturday morning (yepp I got rostered on the weekend) and introduced herself to the doctor sitting at reception. Within 5 minutes of meeting me, Dr Reception-man (as I will refer to him) told me to go straight home because ICU on a weekend sucks. But Nay – I wished to stay for a little bit for I had already made the effort of turning up – this was my first mistake. The moment I said I’d stay, I began to become invisible to Dr Reception-man.

The rest of my day panned out like this:
I asked questions and was super enthusiastic but the doctor couldn’t have cared less, and proceeded to ignore me for the entire morning. When he saw patients, he introduced himself only and never told the patients about me. Consequently, Nimmy had to loiter in the corner of the room awkwardly smiling at the patients. It was like if the doctor pretended I didn’t exist then maybe the patient would forget I was there too. Talk about deflating. Other times the doctor would walk across the room, and if I was in his path, he’d look at me as though he was wondering where on earth I had come from (dude I’ve been here all day!).

Don’t get me wrong, there are very many clinicians (nurses, allied health and docs) who love having students with them. These professionals are absolute legends because they know the only way students can learn is by being given the opportunity to learn. As students, we are put into completely alien environments with no one we know, so to have someone show you how things work is so refreshing and helpful. When health professionals get us involved, we begin to gain skills that we can then use to help others later on in our placement. Taking a history, quizzing us about what we’re seeing, hearing or feeling on examination or even telling us how to do documentation – these are all things we want to see but can never do if no one can see us.

So what am I trying to get at? If you’re a doctor for whom medical school is a distant memory, just a refresher: if you see a medical student in front of you, we have made an effort to be there to learn from you so please don’t pretend we don’t exist. I’m not saying you have to pat us on the back for turning up. Heck, don’t even bother learning our names if you don’t want to. If you’re too busy, just point us in the direction of a person who does teach – we understand. But if there’s time to teach us, please do it – we will forever remember you as the doctor who cured our “invisible medical student-itis”.

I’m a lazy kid – not going to lie. I use abbreviations where possible, “to kill two birds with one stone” is my life mantra and if it requires more effort than making a cup of tea I will use all my energy in contemplating whether to do it or not. Needless to say I don’t love doing extra work. So when mini-Nimmy had to sit at the dining table with extra books around her, Mumma in the background, learning something all her friends didn’t have to, she wasn’t thrilled. Oh the joy of learning another language. Different sounds, different letters, different words – why did I need this added level of complexity in my already hectic grade 4-er life? Writing out 10 sentences in English for homework was pain enough; to dictate Kannada proverbs in my playtime was a violation of my kiddy rights!

Kannada – pronounced Cun/na/da not Canada – that’s the language I speak, my mother tongue. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. It’s a South Indian language that is spoken by people who come from the state of Karnataka. None of my friends ever know of it and usually my first conversation with them about it goes like this:

Friend: Oh you know another language. What’s it called?

Me: Kannada

Friend: Canada?! What they have their own language!?

Me: No I speak Cun-na-da

Friend: Nup never heard of it

Great all that hard work, hours of monkey bar time given up to learn a language no one has even heard of. Thanks mum. Growing ever disgruntled I would strut up to my mother and demand to know why she insisted on teaching me a language that no one knew about, and her answer was always, “So I can get mad at you in the grocery store and no one will know I’m yelling at you.” – Charming, glad to know all this effort is going to good use. Once again, thanks mum.

What Mini-Nimmy didn’t know was that there were going to be advantages later in life from knowing an unknown language. Gossiping is a girl’s best friend (ammirite?) and every girl knows that the best person to gossip with is her Mumma (I am so right!). But what is the biggest problem with gossiping? People listening and then telling Mary that you think her new short hair looks like a poodle. So how could we ever solve such a problem – bilingualism! Huzzah! You have no idea how often Mumma will point out a far too short skirt, or a crazy haired person or a crazy friend all while using the intonation of a thorough literary discussion. The woman is seriously brilliant – give her an Oscar. However, the benefits of bilingualism (and multilingualism) go far beyond idle gossip. Studies have shown knowing multiple languages delays the onset of Alzheimer’s, allows better recovery after brain damage, improves one’s cognitive capacity and is a darn good party trick. But what makes being bilingual so good for me?

My immediate family is in Australia but everyone else is in India – the reason why I love my bilingualism is that it has allowed me to become close to my family who live half a world away. Being able to speak the language they use every day makes me feel like I don’t live across the Indian Ocean in a totally different continent. It gives me a sense of identity, it keeps me firmly tethered to my roots and it makes India feel like home. When I go there, I truly feel local. I can go to the shops and buy sweets from roadside stalls, I can tell the auto driver where to go and I can scold the tailor when he hasn’t finished making my clothes on time. It’s great! For this I cannot thank my Mumma and Papa enough – it is one of the best things they have done for me. In fact, I now wish they had taught me another language! Preferably Hindi – people know of that one, plus it would make understanding Bollywood movies so much easier.

So… believe it or not, older-Nimmy is now getting her Mumma to teach her Hindi. (What would mini-Nimmy have to say about this!?). It’s not easy, and I’m not very good at it. There is a lot of Mumma repeating the same phrase at me, with me staring at her with the hope that I’ll miraculously understand what she’s saying. However, what is helpful is the fact that my little 4 year old cousin has only a slightly more advanced Hindi-ability than me so I can use his pre-loved Hindi colouring-in books to learn from. They will go well beside my medicine books – looking like David and Goliath. It is an ever-so-painfully slow process and I’m nowhere near the gossip level. So in the meantime if you hear two females talking in Kannada behind you at the grocery store, chances are we are talking about you.